Читать книгу American Forest Trees - Henry H. Gibson - Страница 5

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[1] The following 12 species are usually classed soft pines: White Pine (Pinus strobus); Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana); Western White Pine (Pinus monticola); Mexican White Pine (Pinus strobiformis); Limber Pine (Pinus flexilis); Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis); Foxtail Pine (Pinus balfouriana); Parry Pine (Pinus quadrifolia); Mexican Pinon (Pinus cembroides); Pinon (Pinus edulis); Singleleaf Pinon (Pinus monophylla); Bristlecone Pine (Pinus aristata).

The best known wood of the United States has never been burdened with a multitude of names, as many minor species have. It is commonly known as white pine in every region where it grows, and in many where the living tree is never seen, except when planted for ornament. The light color of the wood suggests the name. The bark and the foliage are of somber hue, though not as dark as hemlock and many of the pines. The name Weymouth pine is occasionally heard, but it is more used in books than by lumbermen. It is commonly supposed that the name refers to Lord Weymouth who interested himself in the tree at an early period, but this has been disputed. In Pennsylvania it is occasionally called soft pine to distinguish it from the harder and inferior pitch pine and table mountain pine with which it is sometimes associated. It is the softest of the pines, and the name is not inappropriate. In some regions of the South, where it is well known, it is called northern spruce pine in recognition of the fact that it is a northern species which has followed the Appalachian mountain ranges some hundreds of miles southward. There is no good reason for this name when applied to white pine. It should be remembered, however, that no less than a dozen tree species in the United States are sometimes called spruce pine. Cork pine is a trade name applied more frequently to the wood than to the living tree. It is the wood of old, mature, first class trunks, as nearly perfect as can be found. Pumpkin pine is another name given to the same class of wood. It is so named because the grain is homogeneous, like a pumpkin, and may be readily cut and carved in any direction. It is the ideal wood for the pattern maker, but it is now hard to get because the venerable white pines, many hundred years old, are practically gone.

The northern limit of the range of white pine stretches from Newfoundland to Manitoba, more than 1800 miles east and west across the Dominion of Canada, and southward to northern Georgia, 1200 miles in a north and south direction. But white pine does not grow in all parts of the territory thus delimited. It attained magnificent development in certain large regions before lumbering began, and in others it was scarce or totally wanting. Its ability to maintain itself on land too thin for vigorous hardwood growth gave it a monopoly of enormous stretches of sandy country, particularly in the Lake States. It occupied large areas in New England and southern Canada; developed splendid stands in New York and Pennsylvania; and it covered certain mountains and uplands southward along the mountain ranges across Maryland, West Virginia, and the elevated regions two or three hundred miles farther south.

A dozen or more varieties of white pine have been developed under cultivation, but they interest the nurseryman, not the lumberman. In all the wide extension of its range, and during all past time, nature was never able to develop a single variety of white pine which departed from the typical species. For that reason it is one of the most interesting objects of study in the tree kingdom. True, the white pine in the southern mountains differs slightly from the northern tree, but botanically it is the same. Its wood is a little heavier, its branches are more resinous and consequently adhere a longer time to the trunk after they die, resulting in lumber with more knots. The southern wood is more tinged with red, the knots are redder and usually sounder than in the North.

It is unfortunately necessary in speaking of white pine forests to use the past tense, for most of the primeval stands have disappeared. The range is as extensive as ever, because wherever a forest once grew, a few trees remain; but the merchantable timber has been cut in most regions. The tree bears winged seeds which quickly scatter over vacant spaces, and new growth would long ago, in most cases, have taken the place of the old, had not fires persistently destroyed the seedlings. In parts of New England where fire protection is afforded, dense stands of white pine are coming on, and in numerous instances profitable lumber operations are carried on in second growth forests. That condition does not exist generally in white pine regions. Primeval stands were seldom absolutely pure, but sometimes, in bodies of thousands of acres, there was little but white pine. Generally hardwoods or other softwoods grew with the pine. At its best, it is the largest pine of the United States, except the sugar pine of California. The largest trees grew in New England where diameters of six or more feet and heights exceeding 200 feet were found. A diameter of four and five feet and a height of 150 feet are about the size limits in the Lake States and the southern mountains. Trees two or three feet through and ninety and 120 tall are a fair average for mature timber.

The wood of white pine is among the lightest of the commercial timbers of this country, and among the softest. While it is not strong, it compares favorably, weight for weight, with most others. It is of rather rapid growth, and the rings of annual increase are clearly defined, and they contain comparatively few resin ducts. For that reason it may be classed as a close, compact wood. It polishes well, may be cut with great ease, and after it is seasoned it holds its form better than most woods. That property fits it admirably for doors and sash and for backing of veneer, where a little warping or twisting would do much harm.

The medullary rays are numerous but are too small to be easily seen separately, and do not figure much in the appearance of the wood. The resin passages are few and small, but the wood contains enough resin to give it a characteristic odor, which is not usually considered injurious to merchandise shipped in pine boxes. The white color of the wood gives it much of its value. Though rather weak, white pine is stiff, rather low in elasticity, is practically wanting in toughness, has little figure, and when exposed to alternate dryness and dampness it is rated poor in lasting properties; yet shingles and weather boarding of this wood have been known to stand half a century. The sapwood is lighter in color than the heart, and decays more quickly.

As long as white pine was abundant it surpassed all other woods of this country in the amount used. It was one of the earliest exports from New England, and it went to the West Indies and to Europe. England attempted to control the cutting and export of white pine, but was unsuccessful. At an early period the rivers were utilized for transporting the logs and the lumber to market, and that method has continued until the present time. Spectacular log drives were common in early times in New England, later in New York and Pennsylvania, and still later in Michigan and the other Lake States. Many billions of feet of faultless logs have gone down flooded rivers. The scenes in the woods and the life in lumber camps have been written in novels and romances, and the central figure of it all was white pine.

There are a few things for which this wood is not suitable; otherwise its use has been nearly universal in some parts of this country. It went into masts and matches, which are the largest and smallest commodities, and into almost every shape and size of product between. Most of the early houses and barns in the pine region were built of it. Hewed pine was the foundation, and the shingles were of split and shaved pine. It formed floors, doors, sash, and shutters. It was the ceiling within and the weather boarding without. It fenced the fields and bridged the streams. It went to market as rough lumber, and planing mills turned it out as dressed stock in various forms. It has probably been more extensively employed by box makers than any other wood, and though it is scarcer than formerly, hundreds of millions of feet of it are still used annually by box makers. Scores of millions of feet yearly are demanded by the manufacturers of window shade rollers, though individually the roller is a very small commodity. In this, as for patterns and many other things, no satisfactory substitute for white pine has been found.

As a timber tree, it will not disappear from this country, though the days of its greatest importance are past. Enormous tracts where it once grew will apparently never again produce a white pine sawlog. The prospect is more encouraging in other regions, and there will always be a considerable quantity of this lumber in the American market, though the high percentage of good grades which prevailed in the past will not continue in the future.

White pine belongs in the five needle group, that is, five leaves grow in a bundle. They turn yellow and fall in the autumn of the second year. The cones are slender, are from five to eleven inches in length, and ripen and disperse their seeds in the autumn of the second year.